'Play School' was broadcast every weekday morning on the BBC from 1964 to 1988. Its format, aimed at pre-school children, remained almost unchanged: songs, dances, dressing up, pets, films of the outside world 'seen' through one of three windows, and the real stars of 'Play School' - the toys.

The 'Play School' toys were Humpty (a plush version of the nursery rhyme character Humpty Dumpty), teddies Big Ted and Little Ted, ragdoll Jemima, and plastic doll Hamble (replaced by Poppy in the mid 1980s).